David Allan Coe Camp Disputes Meridian's Cancellation Story

This isn't exactly a surprise, but earlier this afternoon Rocks Off got a phone call from David Allan Coe's management company contesting the account of why last Friday's show at Meridian did not happen.

Both over the phone and in a press release he faxed to Rocks Off, Coe's agent Robert Levine says that, contrary to what Meridian General Manager Jerroy Germaine told our Marc Brubaker in Monday's article, the show was not canceled due to slow ticket sales and poor promotion.

Instead, Levine said, the outlaw troubador and his band showed up at the venue Friday afternoon to discover the building had no power. Meridian owner Gary Katz did confirm the building had lost power sometime around last weekend to Brubaker, but declined to say exactly when or why.

"We couldn't have played if we wanted to," Devine said.

Devine says he called the club and asked them to rent a generator. At this point, he says, a Meridian employee told him that the club did not have any money to pay Coe and his band.

"That's exactly what we were told," he says. "You can look at our tour schedule - we play all the time. That's what we do. We would never, ever not play, unless there's no electricity or someone doesn't have the money to pay us.

"We're not going to work for free."

Rocks Off called both Jermaine and Katz for a comment. Jermaine's voicemail was full, but we were able to reach Katz, who said he was too busy to talk at the moment. He asked us to send him our contact information (which we have done) and hung up before we could ask a single question.

Both Meridian employees Coe's people talked to last Friday have since quit, Levine said. He added that one, a young woman named Ashley, called him the next day and said, "I took this job to learn the music industry, and I definitely don't want to learn it from people who operate like this."

Levine and his company, Maximus Entertainment, said they will offer assistance to Coe fans seeking refunds, and that the singer will be back in Houston "sometime soon."